Surviving War
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: [poetry collection] They were young and innocent and impressionable when they entered the war, and now they weren't.
1. bleeding heart

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #001 - sort, #002 - harm, #032 - scratch

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 **Surviving War**  
 _1: bleeding heart_

They were different  
and for that, they had to fight  
a war? It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair  
but that was the way things were  
after all.

They tried to understand each other.  
They failed.

Or perhaps they'd been set up  
to fail.

After all, forgiveness was a hard thing  
to find, when the heart still bled  
and on the field of war,  
the heart always bled.


	2. building a machine

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #005 - super, #006 - bang, #013 - drown, #033 - noxious

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 **Surviving War**  
 _2: building a machine_

He knew he was building the machines  
for a war, but he also knew he was waiting  
for that war.

He was a child who wanted to live happily  
with other children, and yet  
before that was the ashes, and the flames

And he was timber, sodden  
but quick to catch alight

And he did catch, and that was a near  
eternal flame, that burned for fifty years  
or more, until more forgiving tides came

But before that were the other sparks  
that just fed his flames.


	3. piracy

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #012 - glib, #021 - spot, #024 - amazing, #034 - nonchalant

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 **Surviving War**  
 _3: piracy_

When it came to this matter of theirs,  
they disagreed. And it wasn't fair  
because his dad was his dad  
and that meant he climbed out on top  
of every war they had.

He was the hero, the bread-earner,  
the disciplinarian and he the petulant child  
who had to learn, but would never learn

And it wasn't his fault  
he would never learn.

He had his own gifts.  
He had his own reasons too,  
his own friends and maybe  
his own luck as well - he hadn't lost  
his love so brutally, but he'd had a  
cruel wake-up slap nonetheless.  
It wasn't like he didn't know.

It wasn't like he couldn't be the best  
at what he strove, and it wasn't like  
he couldn't ever be right  
and his father wrong.


	4. Eden's garden

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #003 - actually, #004 - afternoon, #023 - ripe, #025 - mint, #029 - dust

* * *

 **Surviving War**  
 _4: Eden's garden_

He doesn't like being torn between two sides  
and even less with three.

There's his grandfather: proud, mint and stern  
and always there.  
There's his father, a shadow that otherwise shines  
as bright as the sun.  
There's his new friends who are little candles  
in the dark.

And he can't have them all. Sometimes it seems  
he can't even have that one, because they all  
fight like sparks and create fireworks  
in the sky.

And when the dust clouds settle there's only flames  
to burn through what remains

And he wants a paradise garden  
that won't keep till afternoon.


	5. tucked into a corner

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #014 - peep, #022 - nimble, #028 - tail, #030 - charming, #031 - debonair, #036 - resonant

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 **Surviving War**  
 _5: tucked into a corner_

She never wanted to fight  
within a war.

She slipped away instead,  
hid under glitter  
on the coast

And yet the war found her anyway.

There was no place in the world  
where a dragon  
could bury both their heads  
and their tails

And she'd buried her heads in the hope  
that no-one would notice the tail.

But they noticed it. They saw  
and then they dragged her head  
out of the sand and into a suit  
in space

And there'd never been a place to hide  
after all.


	6. mutiny in payback

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #007 - level, #010 - army, #011 - nail, #035 - normal

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 **Surviving War**  
 _6: mutiny in payback_

He was always an army man but this  
was another thing, another motive...

He could still show a crew a good time,  
give good orders, shower their fills  
and yet, there was another reason  
and he'd head to the bottom, dive  
to the top, and take a fall  
if it meant getting what he desired

And then after that, he'd happily pay  
the dues he'd picked up along the way  
and die with a dagger in his back,

Because that was a fate he'd decided  
for himself long ago, and before him,  
another man

And the cycle would never  
really end.


	7. slimy snakes

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #008 - slimy, #017 - ghost, #026 - curious

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 **Surviving War**  
 _7: slimy snakes_

He was like a slimy snake that slithered  
his way up the world. He rarely fought  
head to head but rather danced  
beneath the shadows and called out  
all his pawns.

And they were such lovely, useful, pawns.

Little rats that scampered everywhere  
and made such a mess, but he was deft  
and small, and could slither amongst it all,  
unawares

And why should he not? It was far more effective  
to dance amidst then on the stage  
before them all

And safer too, because he wasn't so big-headed to think  
he could make it oh so far  
on his own.


	8. for the family

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #009 - ten

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 **Surviving War**  
 _8: for the family_

She'll do whatever it takes  
and how many times it takes  
as well, because she can't  
turn back, or give up  
or move ahead...

She's at the point where she's  
sacrificed too much already  
and there's little more to give:

She's the doll that continues to feed  
their insatiable hunger and in return  
they feed her what she needs

And she can't stop. She can't turn back  
like a vampire, she needs the blood  
to live, and it's not an addition,  
but the air, like oxygen

And she'll crash and burn in space  
before she stops.


	9. friends and peace

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #015 - familiar, #016 - borrow

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 **Surviving War**  
 _9: friends and peace_

He wants a peaceful world  
but for that he needs to fight  
in this war first.

And it's not fair, because fighting  
is not just swinging blades and shooting guns  
but sneaking into hearts and ripping them  
from the inside  
into shreds

And he'd made such wonderful friends  
as well, but he'd always knew he'd been  
on borrowed time, and it would end.

He didn't want it to end  
because it would be all too easy to see  
them on the battlefield next,  
and one of them to freeze...

And he wondered which of them would be  
the one to fall? Them...or him.


	10. waiting at home

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #018 - trousers, #020 - smelly

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 **Surviving War**  
 _10: waiting at home_

She watched three generations of boys  
march chin-up into war.

It must be something in their blood,  
she thought. Something that made them  
squirm in their pants until they fought.  
They couldn't get a nice desk job instead:  
her husband, her children, and her grandson  
was heading the same way and she'd almost hoped

But it would have been foolish to hope  
when she knew this place so well.

She could only do what she could. Wash the  
bloodstains off the clothes, have nice warm meals  
when they weren't in space or at sea  
and smile when their eyes weren't closed

And hope the smells of anger and regret  
and blood and pain and all those negative things  
would go away.


	11. after war

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, d2 - poetry collection with an overarching theme, and for the Digimon Battle Spirit: the Challenge, match 1.3 (Renamon vs. Terriermon). Prompts in this poem: #019 - x-ray, #027 - odd

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 **Surviving War**  
 _11: after war_

They fought until they begged to stop  
the fighting, and so they stopped.  
Understanding was achieved  
and it wasn't an easy quest, but easier,  
far easier, then the decades of fighting  
they'd embraced...

Maybe they'd had to look just a little deeper,  
then they could have stopped  
before they were swept so far out  
to sea

But it's not strange at all to be blind  
but the blood-stained glasses of war  
and they'd played their part well.

It was only after they saw the other side  
and wounds finally began to heal  
that they could turn around  
and smile, and lay down their sword

And the quiet times could come,  
after the war.


End file.
